SONY-BOY is finally at home with other Sony friends!

Hi guys thank you for accepting me into the forum. I have chosen the SONY-BOY username due to my fanatical approach to collecting anything displaying the SONY name or items with a direct connection to Sony.

I joined the forum some time ago but sadly my life was turned upside down with the loss of both parents and the sudden inpact of finding myself a single non-working male trying to find focus in life and trying to find money for paying the bills!

I have looked around the forum but find the Playstation sadly missing so would like to add it to the forum in the lounge for starters and see how much interest it creates. I am not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination so playstation games are not a priority for me and won't be featured unless required to get a point across in discussion. It is the hardware that interests me and I am quite proud of the console collection (among many other items of Sony equipment), I currently have.

I understand it required this posting before I can create a new thread in the lounge so fingers crossed it will work out.

Regards,
SONY-BOY.

 

Welcome Sony-Boy. I wonder if you know that the Sony name partly came from the expression sonny boy, which “conveyed to Sony Founder Akio Morita the youthful energy and irreverence he wanted at the heart of the company" It is certainly more memorable than the previous name Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo.

You will certainly find a few Sony fans here. At one point I was aiming to collect all their ICF series shortwave radios but gave up after about ten.

Regarding the Playstation I don't know how many people are into them. There is no harm in trying a thread.
We did have a retro computers thread going http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/old-computers-prev-not-your-conventional-cassette-player.1581/
I think most of us here are old enough to remember when the Spectrum or Commodore 64 were the latest and greatest things (or maybe that's just me. I also remember the launch of the Commodore Pet - and trying to persuade the head of maths at school to buy one)
The only consoles I have bought new were the N64 and Sega Dreamcast, both of which I still have in storage somewhere.

 

Thanks Longman. Yes I am well aware of the origins of Sony, the logos and their name. SONY BOY (whithout hyphen) does exist as a shop display in the form of a small boy displaying SONY on his jumper!
I am not sure where to post items from my collection, but presumably cassette decks in the cassette deck section or keep a thread just for showing my collection. Members thoughts most welcome.

 

If you want to keep things together, one thread in the lounge would be OK. We love to see photos of other peoples collections.

 

OK thanks. I will see about getting that sorted.

SONY-BOY

 

Welcome back, mate!

BTW, Playstations do have some connection with music reproduction,
I know about some fans loving to use their old PSs to play music,
they even find some appeal in a way old PSs (I don't remember the DACs and PS models) sound comparing them to some HiFi DAPs.

Just in-between found a nice Sony heritage link:

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...y-design-history-products-tokyo-ginza-exhibit

 

Thank you for the replies, this is very encouraging. ''Mister X'', when I do my collection thread it won't be about or include anything other than Sony items as that was the only brand I brought for decades for all my audio and video entertainment needs. You will however be very welcome to join in with any connection to Sony equipment but as for looking at old gear (which I do enjoy but don't own any from other companies!) there won't be any from me!

''Mystic Traveller''... well, I know there is a big following in the semi-professional audio world for the early Playstations because of what they can do which is great for the produts initial design and specification.

 

Yep, almost forgot some early ones can do direct digital rips of SACDs.

 

I have now started my collection thread in the lounge here...http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/the-sony-boy-collection.5096/ which will be an on-going post as there is so much to talk about and show, thanks.

 

Welcome (back)!
Life can be harsh. It's good to have a passion/hobby to revert to in such moments.

I'm actually surprised I've never tried this myself... at least I don't remember ever doing it but having been aware of the possibility, perhaps I thought the quality wouldn't have been that great anyway. Maybe I should connect my PS1 once more!
Oh and let's not forget the handheld PSP console, which also did indeed have a remote combination jack identical to a fair share of MD and late tape walkmans and the ability to play music files (I'm actually hesitant to try my MZ-R30's remote on it out of fear the buttons might do something entirely different).
I'm not sure if there have been UMDs with music though. I do remember that they produced movies on UMD for a brief moment in time before realizing that the sales were ok at best. Partially a shame, partially not, considering UMD drives had the same issue as a fair share of MD drives: After extensive use they aquired "that position" in which they only had a somewhat guaranteed playback (an issue both my MD Walkman, the MZ-R500, and my PSP-1000 suffer from depending on the day...). Tilt them the opposite way and apparently the lens movement will freeze under the force of gravity and you will hear repetitive noises of the device trying to get it moving, which obviously freezes (U)MD playback.
Though I have to say UMDs looked far cheaper and less charming than MDs in my opinion. The casing design aged for the worse and having the disc constantly exposed in that cutout is a questionable thing.

 

Not a Sony, but I do remember that when I swapped my first generation Hitachi CD player (which started to skip) with a Philips CDi I was surprised at the big improvement in sound quality.

 

Co developed by Sony and Philips the CD-I format complies with the same specificsations laid down in the Red book for audio CD's so its not at all surprising the audio sound is pretty good.

 

Hey SONY-BOY... Longman is correct I'm a Sony collector as well. I mainly collect stereo separate components from their first units to the mid 70s. Welcome to the forum!

 

My love are cassette decks. I started back in the early 80s at the age of 15. My father bought an old receiver at a garage sale knowing I was very interested. Then, for Christmas, he bought me a new (low end) component cassette deck... then later a Dual turntable and I've been at it ever since buying and upgrading. I uploaded a picture of the deck from the Radio Shack on-line catalogs.

 

That is a fabulous collection of brushed alluminum seperates you have there, far more than my examples, great stuff and nicely presented.

 

Looking at that stack of Sony equipment, just after looking at the Sony prices in a post I just made
http://www.stereo2go.com/forums/threads/dixons-1974.5570/
I wonder if you have ever added up what all those would have cost new ?

There again I remember going in a Second hand / house clearance type shop in 1990, and they had a very simple pricing policy.
Black HiFi separates £20 each. Silver ones £10 each.

 

LOL... I don't want to know how much I spent... nor do I want my wife to know!! The good thing is that it doesn't seem too bad when you buy 1 or 2 units per year. It probably took me about 10 years to build that collection. There's about 10 more units that are not on the wall yet.

But it would be very interesting to do the math to see what it would cost in today's dollars?!

Thanks for that link and comments to that Dixons catalog. I think I should look for a few pricing catalogs like that one... love to look at old catalogs. Is the "dixons" catalog a pricing document?

Have you been to the Radio Shack Catalog web site with nearly all catalogs scanned to all the way back to 1939! Very cool site and it's free.

www.radioshackcatalogs.com

 

I love old catalogues (hence bidding on that one) and have about 40GByte of scans of them.
Dixons was a high street retailer who are still going and have a large share of the UK market.
After buying a rival called Curry's, who also sold white goods, they started using that name when they started opening out of town warehouses.
www.currys.co.uk
I believe that they still use the Dixons name for the shops they have in airports, which still have a similar range, i.e Cameras and gadgets to the original stores.
You can believe the pricing in the 1974 catalogue. In fact back then it would have probably been agreed with Sony for their products, who would have objected to a retailer offering excessive discounts. Feeding the prices through the Bank of England inflation calculator gives over £3000 for a top of the line Tuner Amp. I like to compared prices like that with the price of a top of the range Apple Mac today to show they aren't completely bonkers.

Yes I am aware of the Radio Shack catalogues. We had them (under the name Tandy) in the UK from the 1970s to 1990s.
There are a couple on that site. However, you always have to take Tandy catalogue prices with a pinch of salt as they were always having 1/2 price sales, promotions etc. At one point they would post you a flyer with all the latest offers while the Free Battery Club was another way to get people into the shops to see that months offers. A few months ago I was talking to someone who had been a manager of a Tandy store and he confirmed that.
Another big UK retailer who relies entirely on its catalogue is Argos.
Scans of many of the catalogues are available here
https://retromash.com/argos/
You'll find very few branded HiFi separates but it is good for looking at things like Radio Cassettes. Personal stereos, and all sorts of items for the home. Their pricing was always competitive which is why a major supermarket paid £1.4 billion for the company four years ago.